Friday evening, and towards the close of another interesting day in Doha.
Of course, day one was quite full on, having arrived early on Thursday morning. We were met at the airport by “Mark” our driver organised by Flight Centre. Mark was from Burma, and it appears that most of the general workforce are from places other than Qatar. And sometimes adopt anglicised names for the benefit of the tourists.
As previously mentioned, our flight was long and tiring, but we had arranged for a desert safari for the afternoon and evening. It had seemed a good idea at the time, and it was probably best to keep Friday relatively quiet considering Saturday involved a 4.15 wake-up call and a 7.30 flight to Kilimanjaro, the nearest international airport to Arusha where we will spend the first two weeks of our time away.
“John” from the Philippines picked us up at 1400 and was our host for the safari. Luckily there were no others for the tour so john was able to fashion the tour to our needs, which included Jen’s aversion to bumpy rides, dune bashing, roller coasters and the like. The adjustment was reasonably token, as it was a rollicking pace. One thing we have learned is that as far as driving in Qatar is concerned, no gap is too small, as our Landcruiser, a hefty sort of vehicle, was driven with the nimbleness of my Fiat 500, and the acceleration and speed of a Ferrari. The dune bashing was actually quite fun, and Jenny enjoyed it as well. I must admit to being slightly startled at the slopes and angles we attacked. Qatar is a very small country and after a couple of hours we were at the shores of the inland sea and within a stone throw of Saudi Arabia on the other side of the water.
The desert was littered. Literally. While Doha is litter-free, the many visitors to the desert seem to leave their rubbish unrestrained from the constraints of the city.
The desert is also liberally populated with small tent camps of the locals. Some of the camps are very traditional with tents that would sit well within any landscape of the past 500 years, apart from the satellite dishes and 4 wheel drives. Other camps have more modern caravans. Apparently local Qataris can live in the desert freely during the winter months, but forbidden in the summer because of the heat.
One of the highlight of the outbound journey was a camel ride. Initially only Jen was brave enough, but I was encouraged to have a go. It was only a short journey, but enough to conclude that those wise gentlemen from the East must have had extraordinarily sore bottoms by the time they reached the child Jesus. Disembarking was the scariest moment. The camel rests on his hind haunches first at which point the handler indicates “hold on tight” as he (the camel) suddenly drops his fore legs an unsuspecting is threatened with being launched over the camel’s head. It is one of those moments when one is given the choice between saving pride or camera. We managed to keep all intact.
The return leg featured a pause at desert artists colony, inhabited by bohemian Euro and Arab artists alike. The styles were varied and some seemed very un-desert like. It would be an interesting place to paint, as there is a lot of texture, and the colours very neutral – much like the neutral tones of lounge furniture of the early Harvey Norman period – white, off-white, beige, sand, canvas, etc. I was reminded of Harvey Norman because the well at the centre of the compound was as realistic as a bazaar Rolex.
Mind you, the sunset was spectacular, set against the textured escarpment of the dunes. It would have been nice to have stayed longer for the sunset, but I was a bit concerned about a night time trip over the dunes where the rules about driving seem quite random, and the traffic actually getting quite heavy as darkness descended.
We were supposed to have a BBQ at one of the camps but instead had a traditional Qatari meal at a restaurant near our hotel.
At the end of this long day, we were glad to fall into bed.